HELP - I smell really bad.

I'm looking for advice on how to get rid of the smell of skunk from my skin.

One of my dogs and I were playing ball late last night. Walking back to the house in the dark we inadvertently corned a skunk - with the predictable result: we got blasted with skunk spray a very close range.

As soon as we got home I washed the dog and myself with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish washing soap, which is, as far as I know, the gold standard for this problem. It did a great job on the dog, but not so much on me, even after I repeated it.

To make things more interesting, this afternoon I flew out to Chicago to spend a few days with my bf. He's being a very good sport, but I can't blame him for finding it hard to stay close to me for any length of time. I just tried a third round of the peroxide/baking soda/soap solution but without a lot of effect.

The Skunk Remedy Recipe - for pets but works for humans, too. DO NOT put in your hair 'cause you might end up bleaching it.

In a plastic bucket, mix well the following ingredients:

1 quart of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide

1/4 cup of baking soda

1 to 2 teaspoons liquid soap

for very large pets one quart of tepid tap water may be added to enable complete coverage.

Wash pet promptly and thoroughly, work the solution deep into the fur. Let your nose guide you, leave the solution on about 5 minutes or until the odor is gone. Some heavily oiled areas may require a "rinse and repeat" washing.

Skunks usually aim for the face, but try to keep the solution out of the eyes - it stings. If you have any cuts on your hands you might want to wear latex gloves for the same reason.

After treatment, thoroughly rinse your pet with tepid tap water.

Pour the spent solution down the drain with running water.

NEVER, ever, store mixed solution in a closed bottle, sprayer,etc. Pressure will build up until the container bursts. This can cause severe injury.

2) Hydrogen Peroxide 3% solution is usually sold in pint (500ml) bottles, so you'll need two. The 3% grade is often marked "U.S.P.", meaning that it meets the standards for medical use and purity as set forth in the United States Pharmacopoeia.

The use of other strengths/grades is not recommended unless you're a chemist, and even then a trip to the 24-hour drugstore is much better than a trip to the emergency room.

3) Use baking soda, not baking powder. "Arm and Hammer" is one popular brand. Baking soda is also called: Sodium Bicarbonate, Sodium Bicarbonate, U.S.P., Bicarbonate of Soda, and Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate. Do not confuse any of the above with Washing Soda, which is Sodium Carbonate. Washing Soda is about 100 times more alkaline than Baking Soda and can cause skin burns to both you and your pet.

4) Two preferred brands are "Softsoap" and "Ivory Liquid". As far as auto-decomposition of the peroxide is concerned, the surfactant package in these two is fairly inert. Heavy-duty grease-cutting brands such as "Dawn" are less inert, and hair shampoo is probably the worst.

5) Once mixed, the peroxide slowly breaks down into water and oxygen gas. Thus it gets weaker with time and so it should be used promptly. The exact rate depends on temperature, pH, and catalysts such as trace amounts of metals (iron,etc.) in the soap and/or tap water.

How much pressure will the complete decomposition of 3% hydrogen peroxide produce in a closed container ??? It depends on how full the container is. Assuming negligible solubility of Oxygen in water, a bottle half-full of peroxide will develop about 140 psi. A bottle 3/4 full would develop 420 psi. This can do a lot of damage.

Highly pure hydrogen peroxide decomposes very slowly if kept cool and in a dark place, a few percent a year. The more dilute solutions usually decompose faster (due to impurities in the dilution water) and have a trace of stabilizer added. So why aren't the bottles in the store bloated or bursting ? Look carefully inside the cap... you'll see some very tiny holes in the cap liner to let the oxygen gas escape. A good reason to always store bottles upright.

Look for an expiration date on your peroxide. If you're using stuff which has been sitting around in your medicine cabinet for years, buy fresh peroxide.

flieslikeabeagle saidTo make things more interesting, this afternoon I flew out to Chicago to spend a few days with my bf. He's being a very good sport, but I can't blame him for finding it hard to stay close to me for any length of time. I just tried a third round of the peroxide/baking soda/soap solution but without a lot of effect.

Any other tested remedies?

I have sympathy for you and your BF, but what about those poor people on the airplane with you? I've had to sit next to some real prizes in my day, but skunk smell has gotta have them all beat!

I don't know of anything better to suggest than what's been mentioned, and anyway you say the smell's almost gone now. Reminded me of a story my father told me, when he was a small boy on his parents' farm.

He got sprayed by a skunk, and there was no folk remedy available over 90 years ago, either. His mother made him strip completely naked out in a field and bury every stitch of his clothes in the ground there, no hope of ever getting them odor-free. Then she scrubbed him with strong lye soap, but it still didn't remove all of the smell, and like you, he simply had to wait several days for it to fade.

In the meantime he had to sleep out in the barn with the farm animals. That barn was still standing when I'd stay at the farm many years later, all derelict by then with just a few stray chickens running around, and I would peek in there, imagining my poor Father confined to it for several days at just 7 or 8 years old. Nature evolved the skunk over millions of years to have one pernicious smell, and we haven't found an easy answer to it yet.

But you have to use a lot of cans, but it does work! I believe I used 3 big jars of tomato juice, but in the end it did work I did smell like tomatoes for a day or 2, but I would rather have that than a skunk